1999
Dianne Lynch, Chair
Saint Michael’s College Journalism Department

Lynch writes a weekly column for the Christian Science Monitor online about the ethical, political and social implications of the Internet. Lynch has written for both the scholarly and the popular press. Most recently, her article, "Without a Rulebook: Cyberspace presents journalists with an entirely new set of ethical dilemmas," appeared in the American Journalism Review, and her textbook on new media ethics, "Virtual Ethics," was published last summer by Coursewise, a partner with Houghton Mifflin.


VMD: For some people, the Internet and the World Wide Web are a lifeline.
For others, it's an idea they haven't experienced yet. Can you describe it for those not acquainted with it?

DL: The Web is a door to endless connections, to a universe in which everything leads to everything else -- quickly, easily and logically. Imagine a library in which it would be possible to pick a book off the shelf, open it to description of your hometown and then immediately find maps, profiles of your neighbors, movie reviews of what's playing at the Bijou, audiotapes of the school band playing at the latest football game and a videotape of last year's Fourth of July parade. Suddenly, your experience is almost three-dimensional; you're standing in the library, but you're using your senses to experience life in small town America. That's the difference between the Web and more traditional media. It gives us the big picture, all of it, from every perspective, and it's up to users which pieces of that picture we're interested in exploring.

VMD: Who uses the Internet?

DL: The typical Net user is white, male and middle-class; a recent study reported that 63 percent of Net users were male, white, average age of 33, with a household income of $64,000. But that profile is changing as the number of people getting online continues to grow. As of this fall, an estimated 70 million Americans using the Internet, and, while they are obviously the folks who can afford a computer or know how to access one, their demographics are slowly shifting to reflect a more representative picture of the population as a whole.

VMD: What is the main use of the Internet?

DL: Most people report using the Internet for fun: entertainment, browsing and information. Lots of observers think that will shift over the next year to include shopping and e-commerce.

VMD: How active are Vermont businesses, government, media and other
organizations?

DL: My sense is that Vermont online activity is actually pretty high. Lots of businesses get online because they think they should, rather than because they have a real commercial purpose in doing so.

Our state government does a pretty good job of making information available online, although, we certainly can't count ourselves among the most accessible or wired of the states. There are people in state government, John Howland in the Secretary of State's office comes immediately to mind, who are dedicated to making public information public - and in this era, that means putting it online.

Oddly enough, the media in Vermont has been woefully slow about getting its news onto the Net. If you want Chittenden County news online, for example, the only place to get it is the local network affiliates, which do a pretty good job presenting the headlines, but that's about it. It's astonishing to me that Vermont's biggest newspapers, the Burlington Free Press, in particular, have only a minimal presence online, a situation that makes the Burlington area relatively unique in the country as a mid-sized, affluent, well-educated community that doesn't have a single daily newspaper online. That's a huge hole in the market and I'm just waiting to hear that somebody else has stepped up to fill the need, and there is a need. It astonishes me that the folks at the Free Press don't seem to think it's an issue.

VMD: How different are online publications from their conventional brothers and sisters, television and print journalism?

DL: They're as different from a print publication as television is different from radio, or radio is different from a newspaper. Online publications are an entirely new kind of medium.

They present information, they report on the news of the day, but if they're truly using the medium as it should be used, they're doing it in entirely new ways. The Web allows for interactivity; readers can pick and choose the information they want to access, and the ways in which it is presented to them. They can listen to sound bites, they can watch video, though that technology is still slow and awkward and they can link to related information or ideas, all at the click of a mouse. The reader is in charge of the ways in which he or she accesses the news, a real switch from the days in which print editors decided what was important and that was what readers got.

VMD: What tips would you give people in contacting web reporters and editors?

DL: Spontaneity and interactivity define online journalism. Web reporters and editors are looking for ideas and stories that are useful to their readers now, and that they can present in an interactive way. Not all news stories fit the Web; not all Web stories would work in print. So PR folks and other community groups interested in getting online coverage need to read the Web, need to understand what makes a good Web story, and then pitch their ideas in that context.

VMD: Are journalists approaching news differently because of the Internet?

DL: The Internet has redefined the way major news organizations do their work. The new technology has abolished the notion of daily deadlines; gone are the days in which daily newspapers could produce a couple of editions and sit back for 14 hours until the next deadline rolled around. Online news sites have endless deadlines; they post information as it happens.

And unlike broadcast news -- which is delivered at the news' organizations' whim and on their schedule -- online news is there, waiting to be accessed whenever the reader wants to access it. That means daily newspapers, which used to have a monopoly on substantive, in-depth "breaking" news, are always playing catch up. And that will only become more true as more and more people turn to the Net for their news.

VMD: How are people using the Net for marketing and public relations?

DL: I'm not sure most people are, yet. But that's changing, and I think people are recognizing the power and importance of the medium for reaching an affluent, educated market. Some businesses are resorting to spam, sending blanket messages to hundreds of news editors all at once. It's quick, it's cheap and it's a convenient way to feel like you've accomplished something. It's also the fastest way to put yourself on an editor's "Most Hated" list.

People who spam editors don't understand the culture of the Net. It's about individualization of information, not the "one-message-fits-all" approach that has always characterized traditional media.

Another important difference with the Net is that geographic boundaries no longer apply. It used to be the case that a Vermont interest or business would limit its public relations efforts to local publications and media outlets; who else cared? But the Internet abolishes those kinds of limitations; real Net heads don't think of community in geographic terms. Community is about shared interests and ideas, rather than place. That's good news for businesses operating outside the urban mainstream, as we all do in Vermont.

VMD: Is the Internet changing our sense of privacy or is it part of the information explosion and technology age?

DL: The Internet is a linked environment. Everything is connected to everything else. That means information now comes to us in packages rather than pieces, allowing us to see the whole picture. And the whole is often very different from and bigger than the sum of its parts. That's the great power of the Net and its greatest threat to our personal privacy. Information about us that once was scattered across organizations can now be centralized; what were once dispersed snippets of data, none of which were particularly compelling or enlightening, are now being compiled into complex, comprehensive dossiers.

Some online businesses will give you detailed information on anybody, from what kind of car they drive, to what kind of house they live in, to their social security numbers and health records, for a fee. Online sites send data "cookies" into your hard drive when you log on so they can track your activities on their sites.

And marketers are collecting all kinds of information about us and selling it to the highest bidder. There's no free lunch, on Main Street or on the Web. If a site is asking you to provide it with information about yourself, in exchange for some kind of service or access to some kind of feature or entertainment, remember that you're paying for that service or access with your personal information,that's the currency you're exchanging. And the site wants it for a reason; they're going to sell it.

It's possible to protect your personal information online, but most Web surfers are still naive about how it works; by the time they figure it out, it's too late and they're already getting spam advertising in their email boxes and catalogues in their snail mail boxes.

Eventually, we'll establish some controls over the information that can be collected about us.

VMD: For those contemplating creating their own personal or business web site, what advice would you offer?

Too many people and businesses have Web sites because they think they should or because everybody else does. But that's a waste of their time and effort, and chances are good nobody will ever find it out there in cyberspace, anyway. The only reason to have a Web site is because you have something worthwhile to say to an online audience, any online audience.

It's reasonable to post a personal site that touts your professional and personal accomplishments; I encourage my students to do it all the time. But, the audience for that site is limited.

It's also reasonable to post a business site that, for example, gives customers specific, current information about the availability of a particular product or the minutes of an officers' meeting. Again, a limited audience will have the URL and will care enough to use it.

It's also reasonable to spend lots of money on design and production in order to post a sales site that allows your customers to buy your product online, IF you're also going to spend 20 times that amount to let a national audience know that your site exists. Posting the site is only the beginning for businesses that want to use the Web to attract customers rather than to inform the customers they already have. Buying a domain name that makes sense and advertising your URL are just as important to your success as creating the site in the first place.


Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted in winter 1998/99. The names and organizations mentioned were current as of that time.